


Arm Wrestling

by ChaseTheFearAway



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Arm Wrestling, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, din has a crush if you squint, no beta we die like men, platonic friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:34:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23145517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChaseTheFearAway/pseuds/ChaseTheFearAway
Summary: Expanding on the arm wrestling scene from season 1 episode 7
Relationships: Cara Dune & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Cara Dune/Din Djarin, Cara Dune/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 60





	Arm Wrestling

“I got you now, Mando,” Cara grunted, a smirk on her face.

“Care to double the bet?” Din answered, pushing a little more energy into his grip. He knew Cara couldn’t see it, but his smile matched hers under the helmet. Kuiil moved about in the background, feeding his Blurg and putting his belongings away. 

Din could feel his muscles starting to strain, which quickly grew into a harsh burn. His armour suddenly felt heavy, his hands sweaty. When Cara had asked him to arm wrestle (arm wrestle, like they were children), he agreed because he didn’t really have anything better to do at the moment. He was quickly regretting that decision. Cara, it seemed, had arm strength and stamina to be reckoned with. Din’s own strength was fading, and he could tell that Cara knew, judging by the almost predatory glint that came over her eyes; her smirk widened and she managed to push even harder against his hand. Their clasped hands slipped past a perpendicular position as Cara’s strength overtook his. Din tried to push back, but all he managed to do was hold back her hand for a little bit. 

Mando glared intensely at his gloved hand, almost as if trying to will it to get stronger. Or better yet, he thought, some of those levitation powers the child has. Those would be handy. As Cara poured more and more power into her hold, something changed. Din couldn’t put his finger on it for a moment, not until he felt Cara’s hand loosen from its choking grip on his. Instinctually, he slammed her hand back flat against the table, before flicking his eyes up to her face. Her casual smirk was gone; her expression a mix of confused and scared, an expression Din rarely saw on her. Both of her hands flew around her throat as she looked like she was trying to claw something away from it. Her back arched as she made a choking noise that made Din’s blood go cold, and he immediately looked around the ship for an instigator. Nothing seemed out of place; Kuiil was sitting on a crate by the Blurg’s makeshift pen, the child was sitting in its carrier with its arm outstretched, there was no sign of— the child was sitting in its carrier with its arm outstretched towards Cara’s throat. Din’s head snapped back towards the little creature, whose three-fingered hand was stretched out in front of him, grasped tightly as he glared at Cara. Fuck. Din had seen what the kid could do to a fully grown, rampaging Mudhorn, and now it was all being directed towards Cara—

“No!” Din exclaimed, panic evident in his voice as he quickly got up from the table and reached for the child. “No, no! Stop!” At the sound of his voice, the kid looked up at him and unclenched his little hand. He heard Cara take a big, panicked breath from behind him, followed immediately by a thud. He grabbed the child out of it’s crib and held it up.

“We’re friends! We’re friends! Cara is my friend!” The kid now looked borderline scared and Din knew that Cara wasn’t in immediate danger anymore, but his heart was still beating too fast, and the he needed to make sure the child didn’t try something similar later.

“Don’t choke my friends, got it?” The mandalorian asked intently, starting to calm down.

“That is not okay,” he heard Cara’s voice from behind, her voice concerningly weak. To anyone else, it would have sounded fine, but Din knew better. 

“Hmm,” came the voice of Kuiil by Din’s elbow. “Very curious.”

Curious? Din thought incredulously, Cara could have died and that’s curious? Cara seemed to echo his thoughts as he heard her exclaim from behind him, 

“Curious? It almost killed me!” Her words were immediately followed by a poorly stifled hacking cough that clenched at his heart. He barely registered Kuiil taking the kid out of his arms as he heard another bout of coughing from behind him. He turned and saw her hunched over the table they were arm-wrestling on, weight leaning on her left elbow, coughing into her right.

Din didn’t know what to do. Should he offer her water, or hold her, or what? He had always been on his own, he didn’t know how to deal with a small green child with ancient powers choking one of his— friends, he decided on. 

“Do you want a glass of water?” He decided to start with. Cara looked up and forced herself to stop coughing, shaking her head. 

“I’ll be alright,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “What was that? Did you know he could...” Cara trailed off as she made a hand-waving motion to imitate the kid’s powers.

“It saved me from a mudhorn a while back,” Din replied, sitting down across from her. “I had to buy back the parts of my ship from some Jawas, and they requested a mudhorn egg. It would have killed me if not for the kid.”

“And you...” she paused, waving her hand again, “didn’t think to tell me it can strangle people from across the room?” She sounded mildly offended and slightly incredulous.

“I’m sorry,” Din said after a moment. “I didn’t know he would do that.”

“Apology accepted,” Cara said with her casual smirk, leaning back in her chair. “You got your hands full with the little gremlin?” Din made a noise of agreement that filtered into a soft “hmm” through his helmet.

“I sure hope you know what you’re doing, Mando,” Cara said, genuine concern lacing her voice.

“So do I,” Din agreed, leaning over the table and offering his hand to her, inviting a rematch. “But in the meantime...” Cara leaned over and took his hand, her smirk widening. 

“Previous bets still on?”

“Prepare to lose your credits.”

She laughed. “In your dreams, Mandalorian.”

**Author's Note:**

> I can’t figure out how to do italics in my iPad so this is kinda shitty but here ya go


End file.
